We often take many things in life for granted; that we have clean water to drink, that we have all sorts of communication to convey ideas, images and stories, good weather, the wonderful human-invention called music, the existence of medicine, the ever-growing development of technology, having complete sense and sensation (to see, hear, touch, taste, feel, laugh, and to love), some free time, nature, pets, health, imagination, food…

… And more importantly, the ability to read, to write, to count, and maybe even to draw.

It is mostly the simple and fundamental things in life that we don’t take into account for completing our lives.Most of us have taken for granted the people who have taught us the skills we have now, which are our teachers. Do you still remember your first English teacher who taught you your ABC’s and how to differentiate noun and verb? Or your first Maths teacher who taught you how to count, and then later on how to add and subtract or how to tell the time, the date, and the month?

My favourite subject in school has always been English as I loved reading and writing a lot. I was also very keen on learning everything there is to learn about the subject and how to write creatively. For this, every English teacher I had in my school days were people I looked up to, and needless to say I even paid extra attention to their classes as well (although my well intentions either turned me into a teacher’s pet or the know-it-all in class, I still remember I had a lot of fun). My least interested subject, on the other hand, was of course, Sejarah/History. I plead guilty of nearly falling asleep and not paying enough attention in classes. But in my last year of high school with the pressure and fear of not passing the subject for my SPM, my Sejarah teacher made sure to keep her all her classes fun and interactive while pouring out all her knowledge to us. She would make jokes to keep us interested and often gave us interactive activities in class for us to remember what happened in what year, who did it and whatnot, but more importantly, she would infuse the important names, dates and events into songs which made it 110 times easier to remember (yes, she was definitely a very hip and modern teacher). I cannot thank her enough for making it so much easier to like my least favourite subject just a little bit more, especially during my last year of high school.

It is on the 16th of May every that we celebrate Teachers’ Day to thank the people who have worked day and night to help foster and develop the talents of the younger generations. We appreciate their hard work and selfless efforts in educating us and the generations to come, as well as being a part of our years of youth and growth.

To quote Anatole France: “The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards”.

I would like to say thousand thank yous to Mr. Lim and Puan Hidayah, for your hard work,